Mr. Speaker, the member will know that in the case of Earl Jones, he was not a registered investment dealer. Members will know that people who have lost money through registered investment dealers are able to get compensated by the financial institutions, the banks and the organizations that represent these financial dealers.
The problem here is proper regulation, perhaps some trust fund and bonding regulations for people like Earl Jones, so that people do not get taken by these fraudsters in the first place.
That is really what the point is here. Just to show how lax our regulations are, the United States has had 1,200 white-collar criminals behind bars over a five-year period. In Canada, we have had five. Clearly the government has to start looking at how to prevent the problem in the first place so that people like Earl Jones do not get to defraud people.
I also want to point to some success stories on crime in the United States. As I indicated, the state of Texas, since 2007, has stopped building prisons and has enhanced community corrections approaches, such as drug courts, and has saved $2 billion over five years. Through that whole process, Texas ended up with a 10% reduction in crime from 2004 to 2009.
That is one example, and I could give many more, of being smart on crime. Republicans, right-wingers in the United States, worked with Democrats to achieve these results.